Hiking one-way across the sierras between Edison Lake to Mosquito Flat

Group A (Christian, Annica, piero) hikes from Lake Edison to Mosquito Flat.
Group B (Anne, Paul, Emily) hikes from Mosquito Flat to Lake Edison.

Directions for the western trailhead (Lake Edison, Group A). It takes about 5 hours from the Bay Area to Lake Edison. Take 101 south, 152 east, 99 south. Before Fresno, take the Herndon exit and find Herndon East (not terribly obvious). Keep driving east (many traffic lights). Eventually you will see a sign for 168 east. You will reach Shaver Lake and Huntington Lake before the road narrows and summits at Kaiser Pass. After Kaiser Pass the road becomes really bad and goes down into a valley. After about 30 kms, one reaches Edison Lake. There is a resort and campground by the lake (vermilion Valley Resort, 559 259-4000). The resort runs the boat that crosses the lake (from the resort to the eastern shore) at 4pm, returning at 4:45pm. There are bear lockers on the eastern shore.

Directions for the eastern trailhead (Mosquito Flat, Group B). It takes about 7 hours from the Bay Area to Mosquito Flat. Drive through Yosemite on 120 east. Drive south on 395 past Mammoth Lakes and Crowley Lake and turn right to go to Tom's Place (45' from Mono Lake to Tom's Place). At the exit follow the sign "sno-park". You will pass: French camp, Holiday camp, Aspen camp, Big Meadows camp, Palisades, East Fork, Pine Grove, Rock Creek and the Pack Station. Then the road narrows. The first parking lot is the overflow parking lot. Proceed to the end of the paved road at the Mosquito Flat parking lot (15'). Ideally, park at the very end of this parking lot, which is the trailhead. There are bear lockers. After the restrooms, a bridge connects to the hikers' campground (in theory, you need a wilderness permit to camp here, even if you are going for a day hike only). Last year i took these pictures of the trailhead (but i have never hiked this trail). Mosquito Flat is marked MOSFLT in this map

Plan:
Both Group A and Group B rent cars saturday morning at the same place: each group needs to have drivers on both cars. We made two reservations for saturday 9am in Redwood City with Enterprise (2821 El Camino Real, Redwood City, CA 94061): $50-ish for the weekend including insurance. Feel free to make reservations elsewhere.
Group A reaches Lake Edison by saturday 4pm, parks the car at the resort, catches the last boat to the eastern shore at 4pm, camps near the landing, wakes up 4-5am, folds tents and sleeping bags, leaves them at the landing, starts hiking at 5am.
Group B reaches the Mosquito Flat trailhead at whatever time on saturday, camps at the trailhead, wakes up 4am, folds tents and sleeping bacgs, leaves them in the car, starts hiking at 4am, reaches Lake Edison before 4:45pm, picks up Group A's tent and sleeping bags, catches the boat to the resort at 4:45pm. Have $9 with you to pay for the boat.
Monday morning at 9am two people must return the rental cars.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere the two groups meet and exchange car keys. Both groups: take your wallets with you because you have to drive the other group's car.

Trail (west to east):
The trail from Edison Lake parallels the Mono Creek west to east, until it turns south to cross Mono Pass. Then it connects with the trail of Little Lakes Valley, which goes east to the trailhead about 3 kms uphill from Rock Creek (Mosquito Flat). The total hiking distance is 29 kms from the eastern edge of Edison Lake. It shouldn't take more than 10 hours of hiking (not including stops).
If you (Group B) also have to hike from Vermilion Resort (559 259-4000) to the eastern edge of the lake (or viceversa) because you missed the boat, it's an additional 8kms (some two hours). If you start hiking at 4am, you should finish the hike comfortably before 4:45pm and catch the boat no problem.

People who need to be at work monday morning should be in Group B, because it's a shorter drive back home from Lake Edison than from Mosquito Flat. As long as they don't miss the boat at 4:45pm (which reaches the parking lot around 5:30pm), Group B will be home before midnight.

Hike's milestones (west to east): Warning: you will find no reports on the web of people who have done this hike. Do NOT trust any advice you may receive from hikers you meet on the trail. They have not done it, they don't know. Trust only what we planned.
Directions to Lake Edison from Bay Area.

Take 101 south, 152 east, 99 south. In Madera, take 145 east and then connect to 168 east. There are different ways to do this; e.g.: exit Cleveland Ave on 99, go east on Cleveland through Madera until the junction with Yosemite Ave, which is hwy 145; turn left and continue on 145, turn right on Road 206, turn left at the end of the road (in Friant) on Millerton Road, turn left at the end of the road on Auberry Road, continue on Auberry Rd for about 15 kms to Prather, where the road ends into 168. Continue on 168 east (uphill) passing Shaver Lake and Huntington Lake. The road summits at Kaiser Pass. After Kaiser Pass the road becomes narrow and goes down into a valley. After about 30 kms, one reaches Edison Lake. There is a resort and lodge by the lake (vermilion Valley Resort, 559 259-4000). It takes about 2 hours from the Bay Area to northern Fresno and 3.5 hours to Lake Edison.

Details from the Fresno area to Edison Lake:

It takes about one hour from Kaiser Pass to Edison Lake.